Better Late
by gostlcards
Summary: Spoilers for Ultimatum. NickyJason. It was hard for me...with you. We wanna know why.


Spoilers for Bourne Ultimatum...My first Bourne fic, so please R&R and be gentle :) A little fluff at the end, but I couldn't seem to write it out...sorry. I hope you all like it!

Disclaimer: not mine.

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"It was difficult for me...with you."

He just stared at her, gaze unwavering, and she searched his eyes for some sign of recognition. She found none, and soon looked away, the silence defeaning in the cafe.

She watched him as they sat there in silence, studied him for imprints of a person from the past and found almost nothing. A shrug here, a gesture there, all with echoes of someone who didn't live there anymore.

"_Why are you helping me?"_

_David Webb looked up at her, hazel eyes smiling behind thick goggles as the rest of his face remained calm. He removed the thick headset from over his eyes._

_"What? I can't hear you?"_

_She looked at him, bored. "You know what I said."_

_Then he chuckled, the smile alighting his face in amusement, looking away before looking back at her, trying to hide the slight blush traveling up his neck._

_"You looked like you were having a hard time over here...I just figured I'd be gentlemanly and lend a hand." He took the gun from her hand and clicked the safety on, smiling as he handed it back._

_"First time on the firing range?"_

_"Yes...I'm...I'm new." She couldn't elaborate on her training, or her job, but he recognized the uncertainty behind the half truth and nodded._

_"Confidential. Got it. Well..." He trailed off, looking around and then back at her, smiling ever still. "Welcome to Langley."_

_She wanted to scoff, but couldn't. His smile was flirtatious, and made him even more handsome and she was suddenly aware of warmth spreading on her neck, her stomach suddenly fluttering as she made eye contact once more with him. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "Um...thank you, I guess. I'm Nicky, Nicky Parsons."_

_"Liutenant David Webb." He took her hand, shaking it warmly. "Nice to meet you, Nicky Parsons."_

Twisted irony brought her to where she was. David had disappeared on her, after two years being together one rainy night in 1996. He had orders, an assignment he couldn't tell her about that came with his new rank of captain, and she never saw him again. Until that is, she took an assignment, offered especially for her, a top secret program 5 years later that put her right back with him.

She remembered seeing him for the first time, that 5 years later, and realizing, sickeningly, that he had no clue who she was. He was not her David, but someone completely different.

In a broken home, she watched him, his breathing ragged and heavy as he stood above the body of Nesh, hands bloodied as they squeezed the life from the man. It was hard to watch; she had always ordered the assassinations, but seeing him, of all people, kill a man right in front of her...she would never get used to something like that.

In a cheap hotel room, she watched him in the mirror as he stared at his hands, turning them over and she knew he was replaying what he had done. She saw him then, David, the man she fell in love years before, and made her way over with out a word and handed him the wash cloth, placing a hand on his own in a comforting gesture.

He stared back, and for less than a moment, she wondered if he remembered, if he knew everything. But then it was gone, any chance of recognition, and it was back to business. "They'll kill you for this."

She knew that. When she colored her hair and saw him staring at her in the mirror, she knew he saw her fear and anxiety. She wondered if he saw her longing as well, thinly veiled emotions that had gotten her through the years they'd been hunting him. She had to keep telling herself it was Jason Bourne and that he stopped being David a long time before. Two seperate people in the same package.

But Webb's humanity seemed to had caught up to his alter ego, on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic years before, bringing her so close to him once more.

He walked her to the bus, and she again wondered if he might know. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, both not knowing what to say to fill the silence. A part of her wanted to tell him, call him David; she wanted to see his smile, just one more time. But she nodded and walked towards the bus, only stopping as his voice reached her, his attempt at words of comfort only disappointing her further.

"It get's easier," He said softly. She stared blankly back at him before moving onto the bus without a glance back.

_He held her in her kitchen, both with their damp hair and clothes from the rain, a few silent tears making their way down her face._

_"I know it's hard, being apart, but this is bigger than us, Nic. It'll be over before you know it, you know, and i'll be back. This being away...it get's easier." He had kissed her temple, before unwrapping his arms from around and wordlessly slipping out of the apartment, leaving her alone in the dark, neither knowing he wouldn't be back._

**It never get's easier, Jason,** she thought, as the bus pulled away. **It never has.**

----

News broke less than a week after that, CNN getting reports of a top secret program that utilized assasins in the CIA to take out targets the US government considered imminently dangerous. She smiled as Landy's face graced the screen, the agent who discovered it and turned over documents.

She felt her attention catch as she heard David's name mentioned, felt her heart skip as they announced he had been shot as he fell towards the river, yet in three days, the body had not been found. She grinned as she realized it was going to take much more than a bullet and 10 story drop to kill him. He had always been resilient, above all other things.

Later that evening, she entered her townhome in a small town in upstate New York. To lay low, she reconnected with old friends from MIT, and now helped run a small bookstore in the area, using money siphoned from an old Treadstone account to fund her new, barely furninshed home. She made her way to the kitchen in the dark, removing the ear buds from her iPod and setting her books and laptop down quietly before standing perfectly still.

"You know," She began. "Breaking and entering is a crime."

"Not a new one for me." His voice was low, almost a whisper and she turned slowly to face him, the small of her back resting against the counter.

"What are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you're alright." He replied, side stepping her question.

"I could say the same for you." She studied him, but didn't move closer. He saw her reserved stance, the wary look she graced upon him, and he rose slowly.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know." She replied. "But I still don't understand what you're doing here."

He wandered into the small kitchen, bare except for a half empty carton of take out on a counter with two stools under it. His eyes gestured to them, and she nodded, giving him the okay to sit.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I am." She nodded, biting her lip. She studied his face closer in the light and saw the bruise along his face where he must have hit the water first, saw the makeshift sling his right arm was in and vario\us other cuts and bruises that graced that which was visible to her. She hissed slightly at them, for there were many. "It's good to see you're alive."

"Barely." He replied. And then Jason Bourne did something Nicky hadn't seen him do in the entire 3 years they were hunting him.

He _smiled._ It rocked her to the core, his smile. It was nervous, as if he had a secret that they both knew, something he had unearthed and was here to ask her, and she was scared to death to hear what it was. It was his half smile, the kind he used sheepishly when she caught him in something, a smile she had once hoped her children would inherit because it was a part of him that made her fall in love with him.

She realized this was not Jason Bourne in her kitchen, and her breathing hitched.

His training did not just evaporate though. He recognized the change in breathing pattern, noticed how her eyes danced around avoiding his and fought an inexplicable urge to grab her hand.

"I'm sorry." He said finally, moving a little closer. She pulled back slightly, fighting instinct based on what had happened at the train station in Berlin.

"For what?" She whispered.

"For Berlin," He continued, his eyes meeting the floor as he felt shameful for his actions. "Even for London, at Daniel's apartment."

"You saved my life in Tangiers." As if that excused everything else.

He smiled again at her, remembering the panic that had overtaken him when he realized Desh was after her. He knew where it came from now.

"I...remember things."

She stiffened. "What kinds of things?" She whispered it, but he heard loud and clear that his memories were truth. He walked closer to her.

"Nicky..."

"Jason..."

He grabbed her hand and she tried to pull away, but her arm wouldn't follow the order. He looked her straight in the eye, searching for more truths and found them.

In London. In that hotel, in Tangiers. All of it. Those looks of hers weren't fear or anxiousness from danger, but from something else he was unable to define then. His memories were still flowing, still coming easily with slight prompting and he saw it suddenly, a flash in his mind accompianed with quick, sharp pain.

_Her face, smiling, hair spread on on the pillow like a halo...her laughing as she flecked a bit of food at his face, as he tackled her playfully...saying goodbye and walking into the rain._

"Nic..." His voice was unsure now, questioning, and the tears shining unshed in her eyes prompted him inexplicably to brush a hair behind her ear. She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes halfway as she let herself fade ten years back for a moment, before pulling away slowly.

"You can't just skip the last ten years. We've both become very different people."

"I'm not asking for that." He replied softly, although they both knew it was something they were thinking about.

"Then what are you asking for?"

"For help. For a friend." He looked up at her, saddness in his eyes. "You're all I know, Nic."

She stared for a few silent moments, and the stepped forward, surprising him as she wrapped her arms around his midsection. He stood for a few seconds, unsure of it, before closing his arms around her back.

"Better late than never..." She sighed with a chuckle. "Welcome back, David. Welcome back."

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Done. :) They'll probably be others, cause I have a couple of different plot bunnies, and this was my first Bourne fic so please be nice... 


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